[cctbxbb] Race condition in bootstrap python installation

[markus.gerstel at diamond.ac.uk]

We have recently seen intermittent build failures with the bootstrap base installation at Diamond. These all occurred during the compilation of python and were usually of the form

: gcc -pthread -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -Wl,-rpath=\$ORIGIN/../lib Parser/acceler.o Parser/grammar1.o Parser/listnode.o Parser/node.o Parser/parser.o Parser/parsetok.o Parser/bitset.o Parser/metagrammar.o Parser/firstsets.o Parser/grammar.o Parser/pgen.o Objects/obmalloc.o Python/mysnprintf.o Python/pyctype.o Parser/tokenizer_pgen.o Parser/printgrammar.o Parser/pgenmain.o -lpthread -ldl  -lutil -o Parser/pgen
: Parser/node.o: file not recognized: File truncated
: collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
: make[1]: *** [Parser/pgen] Error 1
: make[1]: Leaving directory `/scratch/jenkins_slave/workspace/dials_bootstrap_platforms/compilationtarget/native/label/dials-ws154/build_dials/base_tmp/Python-2.7.8_cci'
: make: *** [Include/graminit.h] Error 2
: make: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "modules/cctbx_project/libtbx/auto_build/install_base_packages.py", line 1194, in <module>
    installer(args=sys.argv, log=sys.stdout)
  File "modules/cctbx_project/libtbx/auto_build/install_base_packages.py", line 184, in __init__
    self.build_dependencies(packages=packages)
  File "modules/cctbx_project/libtbx/auto_build/install_base_packages.py", line 571, in build_dependencies
    getattr(self, 'build_%s'%i)()
  File "modules/cctbx_project/libtbx/auto_build/install_base_packages.py", line 622, in build_python
    self.call('make -j %s install'%(self.nproc), log=log, cwd=python_dir)
  File "modules/cctbx_project/libtbx/auto_build/install_base_packages.py", line 264, in call
    return call(args, log=log, verbose=self.verbose, **kwargs)
  File "/scratch/jenkins_slave/workspace/dials_bootstrap_platforms/compilationtarget/native/label/dials-ws154/build_dials/modules/cctbx_project/libtbx/auto_build/installer_utils.py", line 81, in call
    raise RuntimeError("Call to '%s' failed with exit code %d" % (args, rc))
RuntimeError: Call to 'make -j 4 install' failed with exit code 2

Other indicated errors are
  /usr/bin/ld: final link failed: File truncated
or
/usr/bin/ld: can not read symbols: File truncated

I suspect that these errors are manifestations of a race condition in the python build process, which the bootstrap script now by default runs with a -j 4 parallel make.
To test this we are now using --nproc=1 for the base installation step. We haven't seen these build failures since.
I suggest we set the python compilation to never run with parallel make. Any other ideas?

-Markus

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